The next morning, the Khalifa sent for me, and again made me translate the letter to him; and he ordered me to reply at once that I was perfectly happy in my present position. I did as I was told, and wrote a letter praising the Khalifa, and saying how happy I was to be near him; but I put inverted commas against many words and sentences, and points of exclamation, and wrote at the bottom of the letter that all words and sentences thus marked should be read in exactly the opposite sense. At the same time, I asked my brothers and sisters to write a letter of thanks to the Khalifa in Arabic, and to send him a travelling-bag, and to me two hundred pounds, and twelve common watches, suitable for presents; as, on certain seasons of the year, the Emirs attended the feasts in Omdurman, and would greatly appreciate them. I also asked them to send me a translation of the Kuran in German, and advised them not to worry for the present; but that I hoped to find some means of being re-united to them. I told them to send the things, through the Austrian Consul-General in Cairo, to the Governor of Suakin, by whom they would be forwarded to Osman Digna. I handed this letter to the Khalifa, who gave it to some postmen who were going to Osman Digna with instructions to send it to Suakin.
About a month before I received the sad news of my mother's death, I had to deplore the loss of one of my comrades in captivity, Lupton. He had been working in the dock-yard at Khartum until recently; but the feeble state of his health had obliged him to ask to be relieved from this position. He had then returned to Omdurman, and had suffered great want; but, to his relief, Saleh Wad Haj Ali, with whom he was on very friendly terms, returned from Cairo, and brought him some money which he had received from Lupton's family. Haj Ali naturally tried to make as much money out of the transaction as he could. He had advanced a sum of a hundred dollars to Lupton as a loan, receiving from him, in return, a bill on his brother for two hundred pounds, which had been cashed on his arrival in Cairo; and, returning again to Omdurman, had paid Lupton two hundred dollars, keeping the remainder, about eight hundred dollars, for himself. In spite of this robbery, this small sum delighted poor Lupton, and helped him, for a short period, to stave off the miseries of living like a beggar. He also rejoiced that a medium of communication had been found with his relatives, whereby he eventually hoped to regain his freedom. These hopes, alas, were not to be realised.
He had come home one Tuesday morning from the mosque with me, and was consulting me as to whom he should entrust what remained of his two hundred dollars, so as to obtain small sums when he required them, as it was necessary for him to be most careful not to attract attention to himself by spending large sums, and thus endanger his communication with Egypt. We talked of home and of our present situation; and he seemed more cheerful than usual, but complained of pains in his back, and of a general feeling of indisposition. I left him about midday; and, on the following Tuesday, he sent his servant to me, begging me to go and see him, as he felt very ill. In reply to my question, the man told me that his master was in a high fever, and had been in bed for three days. I promised to come as quickly as possible, and, that evening, asked the Khalifa's permission to go and see him. The next morning, having obtained leave to spend that day with the invalid, I at once went to his house, and found him in a dying condition. He was suffering from typhus fever; and already the illness had reached such a stage that he scarcely recognised me, and, in a few broken words, begged me to take care of his daughter. He then said something about his father and mother; but he was almost incoherent, and, at times, became quite unconscious. I understood, however, that he was begging me to be the bearer of his dying messages, should I ever succeed in escaping. On Wednesday, the 8th May, 1888, he passed away at midday, without having recovered consciousness. We washed him, wrapped him in a shroud, and, according to the usual custom, carried him to the mosque, where the prayers for the dead were recited; and then we buried him in a cemetery near the Beit el Mal. Father Ohrwalder, the majority of the Greek colony, and a number of natives who had learnt to love and respect his noble and unassuming character, were present.
I obtained the Khalifa's permission to see to his household, and handed over his money to a Greek merchant to take charge of for his daughter Fanny, and thus save her from want. I also succeeded in getting a situation at the arsenal for one of his Black boys whom he had educated, and who receives pay up to the present time. Fanny's mother, Zenoba, married, two years later, an Egyptian doctor named Haasan Zeki; and, although I made frequent efforts to send her daughter to Europe to be educated, my plans were always frustrated by the reluctance of mother and daughter to separate. Under such circumstances, it can readily be understood that the girl fell into a thoroughly Sudanese mode of life, adopting their ways and customs, and looking upon herself as a native. Had she gone to Europe,—and she could only have been sent there by force,—the effort to lead a life to which she was utterly unsuited, and away from her Black mother, would have made her miserable.
At this period of my narrative, the Khalifa was in a peculiarly good humour. After the re-conquest of Darfur, he had given orders that everything should be done to induce the Arab tribes to undertake pilgrimages to Omdurman, and, if necessary, to force them to do so. Osman Wad Adam had sent notice that the Khalifa's entire tribe,—the Taaisha,—consisting of upwards of twenty-four thousand warriors, with their wives and families, had decided to immigrate to Omdurman, and that several of them had already reached El Fasher. Thus, at length, the ardent wish of his heart—to gather his own tribe and relatives about him, and make them masters of the situation—was accomplished.
Nejumi was now in Dongola with instructions to undertake offensive operations against Egypt; but the final orders to move forward with the main body were frequently postponed. His army, however, was increased, from time to time, by the arrival of Emirs whom the Khalifa was anxious to remove from Omdurman; and thus a fairly considerable force was gradually accumulating on the northern frontier of the Mahdist Empire.
Osman Wad ed Dekeim, the brother of Yunes, was now sent to Berber, which had hitherto been administered by a representative of the late Mohammed Kheir; and, reinforced by six hundred cavalry, he took over the reins of government. Thus another district fell under the sway of one of the Khalifa's own relatives.